There are three types of releases that can be obtained for NeXtMidas:
x.y.0
,
with subsequent updates used for bug fixes (e.g. x.y.1
,
x.y.2
). No major changes or enhancements are included
between updates of a stable release.
A fourth class of release is a "With Mods" release. This
is a release of NeXtMidas that has been modified by an end user. Since
NeXtMidas is open source, you are encouraged to make changes to your NeXtMidas
baseline and then submit them to the NeXtMidas developers for possible
inclusion in the next release (if you choose to do this, please indicate
such in $NMROOT/nxm/sys/version.txt
and
$NMROOT/nxm/sys/updates.txt
).
Version numbers are three digit numbers in the form x.y.z
:
"If it worked in a previous release, but does not work now...
it is a bug." -- NeXtMidas Developer's Motto |
The NeXtMidas team works hard to provide backwards compatibility between NeXtMidas versions. If your option tree worked in one stable version of NeXtMidas it should build and run in a new (stable) version of NeXtMidas without modification.
Occasionally the NeXtMidas developers will need to "break" a previous functionality in order to fix a bug to to allow an enhancement to be made. Anytime there is a break in functionality that can not be avoided it will be indicated in the "What might break" section of the release notes.
If you find something that worked in a stable version of NeXtMidas that does not work in a subsequent stable version (and isn't listed in the "What might break" section of the release notes), please report it to the NeXtMidas developers ASAP so they can get it fixed.
As new features are added to the NeXtMidas baseline old functions/commands may become antiquated or superseded by new features. To keep the NeXtMidas baseline clean these old functions/commands will be marked as deprecated and scheduled for removal.
Once a function/command has been marked as deprecated it will be maintained in a "deprecated" status (i.e. it will work but may issue warnings on build or use) for a minimum of two stable releases of NeXtMidas (or one year, in the unlikely event that three stable releases are made in the same year). After that the deprecated function/command is subject to removal.
This approach gives users a "warning" period during which they can continue to use the deprecated function/command and can (as time allows) update their code to use the replacement for that function/command.